The Scars That Never Leave Us
by V.Evergreen
Summary: Short chapters and drabbley. Characters thoughts and emotions on the scars they carry, both the kind that you can see and the kind that you can't.
1. Remus Lupin

Remus Lupin was no stranger to scars. In his time at Hogwarts most people were intrigued at how a boy so young could have so many and many asked him before they learned of his shy disposition. When he left the safety of the Hogwarts walls people began to realize what those scars meant and as soon as they realized they recoiled from him. From what he was.

As he got older the scars stayed the same apart from the fact that they took longer to heal and there were more of them; peoples reactions never differed either, he was still feared and loathed by people who passed him the streets and detested by people who thought they knew him without ever meeting them.

The worst thing was that he was used to it. Whenever someone refused to serve him in a shop or spat at him in the streets he didn't care anymore. The scars were a part of him. A part of him that he hated and wished that nobody could see, but wishing wouldn't make it better. It was his scars that alerted people to the fact that he was different before he even had time to speak to them.

And then the unthinkable happened; a young bright witch bounced into his life and accepted him, all of him, and somewhere along the way he fell in love with her.

As Remus looked down slightly at the woman standing in front of him he saw the gentle smile that danced across her face in the dim fire light as she reached a hand slowly towards his face. He closed his eyes and suppressed a shudder as he felt her trace her fingertip down the side of his face and across his jaw as she followed the jagged but barely visible scar with her hand. Ever so carefully he cupped her cheek with his hand and brought his face down to meet hers.

Yes, he was hated by a majority of the public once they learn of his affliction, and yes, the scars that littered his body may have been the reason people avoided him but as he held his wife in his arms he knew that he would not have changed a singe detail of that moment because she loved him more completely than he could comprehend. Scars and all


	2. Alastor Moody

Alastor Moody knew that people took one look at his scarred and pitted face and instantly saw a man who had fought for most of his life, they would be correct in thinking that. However Moody also knew that some people looked him and saw a infallible and invincible being. A man who had seen and fought in too many fights to count and yet had walked away from all of them alive. A man who although they could see how damaged he was chose not to acknowledge and instead preferring to think that he came through every fight with ease because it gave them comfort to have someone who looked like he had already lived through the worst the world had to offer and yet had still come out to ensure the safety of others.

If Moody every heard someone talking like this his blood would boil and he would suddenly have to fight to remain in control of his emotion. What these people did not seem to realize is these scars did not represent very time he won a battle, they show every time he nearly lost.


	3. Bill Weasley

The first time Bill Weasley had looked in the mirror after being attacked by a werewolf had shocked him senseless, but not for the reason that most people thought. It was a curious experience to look at a mirror and not recognize the person who was looking back, to know that the face you once had is gone forever.

No, it was not his appearance that was the worst aspect of being attacked, it was other peoples reactions. His mother had taken one look at him when he had first woken up and burst into fresh tears, sobbing as though someone had died. When he could finally use his voice well enough to ask what was wrong she told him what had happened and passed him a mirror. After getting over the initial shock of not reorganizing his face he did the only thing that came naturally to him at a time like this.

He laughed.

Molly Weasley froze in her seat at the sound and looked at him with tears still over flowing onto her cheeks and a question in her eyes. It was then that Bill had to explain to her that scars didn't detail who or what you are, they only showed what had happened to you and to be quite frank, he didn't give a shit what other people thought about him.


	4. Hermione GrangerWeasley

Years after the war when life was peaceful and serene and sometimes even a bit surreal Hermione Weasley found herself sitting at her kitchen table reading the Quibbler. She almost smiled when remembered what the magazine used to be like under the guidance of Xenophilius Lovegood, ever since Luna had taken over the magazine, while still full of vague ideas and little evidence, it was actually an interesting read.

She looked up a smiled when she took in her four year old daughter running towards her with outstretched arms, picking up Rose and placing her on her lap she continued to read the magazine in front of her until her daughter spoke,

"Mummy, how did you get this?" Asked Rose who had carefully patted her mothers neck where Hermione knew there was a straight and thin scar that ran half the length of her throat where Bellatrix had once held her to ransom. Although the question was asked in the innocence that only a child can muster Hermione was instantly taken back through the years to a dark and dank room where she lay screaming on the floor, just _begging_ her captors to stop hurting her.

If Rose felt her mother tense beneath her she gave no sign of noticing as she traced a finger over the picture set in the articles of the magazine that lay forgotten on the table. In the end it was Ron who walked into the kitchen and saw his wife sitting with their child on her lap and a stricken expression on her face. Swooping in he picked and Rose and laughed and joked with her until she ran off to play in the garden and then he turned back to Hermione who was now standing and about to turn away. Without a word he picked her up in a bone crushing hug as he whispered comfort to her.

Hermione hated her scars, they were reminders of a past she'd rather forget.

…

A/N- Reviews literally make my day! Who should I do next? Promise to take requests-VE


	5. Bellatrix Lestrange

Bellatrix Lestrange wore her scars with pride. They showed how she had suffered for her lord and how faithful she had remained. She had not ran and hid like so many others of the Dark Lords supposed "faithful" inner circle had, she had stayed true to him consequences be damned.

Her scars all showed that she never betrayed he Lord and for this she was sure that he would value him above all others. As she lie huddled in a corner of her dank cell in the wretched place they called Azkaban an insane giggle escaped her lips, when her Lord rose, and she knew that he would, she would be rewarded. Her scars were physical proof of her loyalty and that lone thought kept, for the most part, the chill of the dementors at bay.


	6. George Weasley

At the time he hadn't cared. What was an ear more or less? The only thing that bothered him slightly was that now him and Fred could be told apart but even that was insignificant compared with the danger of the war that loomed over them all casting ugly shadows where there should be none.

Then Fred died.

He couldn't describe the time that came after his death even if he wanted to. All he knew is that he receded back into his own mind, talking to no one and caring for nothing.

What made it harder was that every time he looked in the mirror he saw Fred's face looking back at him. He felt all of the sorrow, pain and guilt hit him as if it were the first time. He didn't see how he would ever make it through this.

But he did.

Slowly but surely he began to live his life once more. The pain was still there; he doubted whether it would ever full go away, but now he could recall the good times and he even found himself looking forward to what the future might hold.

It had all started one day when he walked past a mirror. He felt the pain at the forefront of his mind and the familiar need to run from his own reflection but something made him stop.

As he turned he saw the mangled scar that marked where his ear used to be. The scar that marked him as different. When he looked back in the mirror for the first time in months he saw himself staring back, not Fred. He looked drawn and ill; completely unlike he used to look but it was still him.

It was almost as if he could hear a voice in the back of his head telling him that this is not what Fred would have wanted and no matter how he tried to ignore it, it just grew louder and more insistent until, eventually, he realised it was right.

It was time to start living again.


	7. Lavender Brown

For Lavender Brown the war had never seemed particularly real. She knew it was of course, she heard the horror stories of the outside world and felt the evidence of the war within Hogwarts itself, but it seemed to her that as long as she kept her head down that maybe she would be left alone.

It all changed once Dean went on the run.

No longer was she able to bury her head and pretend that everything was fine, before the war she had been a normal teenage girl, her head filled with vapid notions and an idealistic future.

Now she was preparing to fight for that future.

She wasn't a particularly clever woman but she most certainly wasn't stupid. She knew that there was a chance she wasn't coming back from this one and what surprised her the most was that she had made peace with this.

She was ready for this.

~o~o~o~

Six months after the hollow victory over the death eaters and Voldemort; she always thought of it as hollow because of the amount of pain that war had caused, Lavender sat alone. She sat in her small flat as she had done for the past few weeks only venturing outside for her work.

The isolation was self inflicted but that didn't make it any easier. All she wanted to do was hide from the world, so she did. She sat in her flat completely covering her small frame with baggy and oversized clothes all to hide the scars that ran the length of body given to her by Greyback.

Her friends kept trying to get her to go out, to see them, anything to distract her from the scars that only she seemed to notice.

She ignored them.

Eventually only two friends remained, Parvarti, who called upon her almost everyday with a smile and the freshest gossip, and strangely Seamus, who visited her sporadically with wild tales and jokes. It took her a while but eventually she began to crave their company, and the human contact that they brought them.

Just thinking about them set her heart aching, and as she reached towards the muggle phone that she was testing out she thought that perhaps it was time to go out with her friends. Time to go out and try to and see past the scars.


	8. Sirius Black

For a man who had spent two years as an auror in the first war and the next twelve years going slowly insane in Azkaban Sirius Black had remarkably few physical scars.

Most spells left no scars and the dementors never left a mark upon flesh.

This is not to say that he didn't have scars, one or two from the normal wear and tear of life and one from where his mother had slapped him so hard that he stumbled and caught his head on the corner of his dresser. These were all minor.

The actual scars lay beneath the surface. They caused him more pain than bleeding ever could. The scars had torn into him the night he found out what Peter had done.

That betrayal had ripped into his very soul but even that was minor compared to the pain of his loss.

The knowledge that he would never see James and Lily again had caused him to double over in a pain that was not mental anguish or it wouln't have _hurt_ so much and his breath to come short.

He would never laugh with James again. He would never tease Lily again. He would never be invited around for no particular reason other than his company.

They weren't just friends they were his family. A family that Peter had ripped apart even though it was his family too.

The moment when Sirius had recovered from this terrible news he knew he had a purpose. He would find and kill Peter, just so that Peter knew what he had done and he was quite sure that he was going to enjoy it, he was a Black after all.

Overall, Sirius wasn't sure if these counted as scars; Peter's betrayal and the loss of his true family. After all scars were wounds that had healed and made that person stronger and Sirius knew that his pain would never leave him nor in any way would it make him stronger


	9. Nymphadora Tonks

For Nymphadora Tonks it was hard to get taken seriously.

The Auror department was full of old and battle worn men all sharing stories of great captures which were complimented by the scars they had to prove it.

They made their way though life hardly ever seen and barely making a sound. That was what made them so effective. They blended into the background, hid in plain sight and were only seen when they wanted to be.

That was made it so hard.

For Nymphadora Tonks was none of these things. She was a colourful person with bright clothes that often clashed garishly with her hair.

She was clumsy. Clumsy enough that people had stopped offering to help her up, they just let her get on with it.

In conversation she was loud, witty and funny, not someone you would forget in a hurry.

What made things worse was that in her first few weeks as a rookie in the Auror department she knew that she wasn't imagining the looks of suspicion and distrust in the eyes of her colleagues.

She wasn't Black by name, but many people assumed that she was by nature. She resented that. She hated that she had nothing wrong and yet was discriminated against anyway.

So she trained. She trained day and night so she could fight alongside them, gain their trust and be seen as an equal. She waited for her chance, half afraid that it would never come.

Then one day it did. A minor bust quickly turned ugly and reinforcements were called. As Tonks landed there from her apparation she threw herself into the fray with reckless abandonment. She fought along the Aurors that deemed her too young, too colourful and too loud and she proved herself.

Until it all went wrong.

A stray cutting curse clipped her on the edge of her arm and before she knew it she was on the ground, consciousness slipping away.

~o~o~o~

Tonks stood in front of the mirror minutes before she was due in at work. She was trying to tug down the short sleeve of her top further down to hide the ugly puckered scar that ran along her arm. She closed her eyes ready to morph it away as a thought occurred to her.

Grinning, she pushed the sleeve of her top back up her arms so the scar was in full sight of every one.

When she walked through the department later that day she knew she wasn't imagining the respect in their eyes.

…..

A/N- Well, I hope you enjoyed it and if you did reviews are welcomed and prompts and suggestions are _sorely_ needed, all the best-VE


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